Pattaya hotel owner says 6.5 million baht in crypto mysteriously sold in trading app

2026-03-13 - 04:04

CHONBURI — 12 March 2026, A Pattaya hotel owner has appealed to the media after digital assets worth about 6.5 million baht in a Thai cryptocurrency trading app were mysteriously sold, before the funds were used to buy a token whose price briefly spiked abnormally. The incident left the account with less than 50,000 baht remaining. At 21:06 on Thursday, Tewin Wongsawisutthikul, 42, the owner of a hotel in Pattaya, approached reporters to report the incident. He said digital assets held in his cryptocurrency account on a Thailand-based trading application were sold without his knowledge, reducing the value of his holdings from more than 6.5 million baht to under 50,000 baht. Tewin said he had accumulated cryptocurrency in the electronic wallet linked to the app and had already enabled two-factor authentication (2FA) for security. However, late the previous night he received a security alert via email, which raised his suspicions. He said he immediately stopped using the account and contacted the platform to temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals. Despite this, when he checked the system again later that afternoon, he found that the digital assets in his account had been gradually sold off multiple times starting at about 06:00 until the balance was depleted. Tewin Wongsawisutthikul shows reporters his phone, which indicate his cryptocurrency holdings were rapidly liquidated in the morning According to Tewin, the proceeds were then used to purchase 10,538 units of the cryptocurrency TAIKO at a price of more than 600 baht per coin, totalling roughly 6.5 million baht. He said the token typically trades at around 3 baht per coin. However, during a roughly four-minute window, the price surged abnormally by more than 600 times, before dropping back to around 3 baht. As a result, the value of the assets in his account fell to less than 50,000 baht. A photograph of Tewin’s phone shows the price of TAIKO briefly spiking to about 600 baht before quickly dropping back to around 3 baht on bitkub After the incident, the victim said he contacted the company that operates the trading application but was told only that the case would be investigated and that the results would be reported later. Tewin said he remains deeply concerned and urged the company to quickly investigate what happened. He added that he hopes to recover his digital assets. He has also filed a police complaint with investigators at Pattaya City Police Station.